What do you get when you combine Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), and Groundhog Day (1993)?  You get A Snow Globe Christmas (2013).  This works as a metaphor, too, because you throw all those cinematic elements into a bowl, mix them up, sprinkle in the seasonal spice, and come out with this odd, made-for-television concoction.  I chose it as part of my usual cycle of going through my streaming services in turn, this time landing on Amazon Prime and picking something that had at least a few familiar names in it.  It also has those cheap, non-studio budget snow effects that are painfully obvious to anyone who has not lived in a wintry environment.  It is not at the top of the list, but such things always take me out of such a production, particularly this time of the year.  Still, this one did have “Silent Night” in it, one of the few carols that actually speaks to why we celebrate December 25^th.  I would mention the fact that they have a Nativity pageant, but nobody says the name of Jesus at any point.  Sigh.  Anyway, on with the review.

Speaking of Christmas movies, Meg (Alicia Witt) is a director for a studio known for its seasonal output, who clutches A Snow Globe Christmas while on set.  Her boss, Frank (Neil Dickson), visits the sound stage as they are trying to wrap another production and is dissatisfied with the output.  She is also dealing with a number of other demands, mainly from her needy boyfriend, Eric (Trevor Donovan) and Penny (Francia Raisa), Meg’s assistant.  The stream of people insisting on her time has Meg feeling the pressure to keep working, telling the crew that they will be at it through December 25^th, cancelling Christmas, in other words.  In the midst of this hecticness, she hears the bells of one of those Salvation Army-type volunteers looking for donations in their red buckets.  The person stationed at it is a woman named Sal (Christina Milian), and she is full of sage advice for Meg.  Sal takes note of the toy Meg holds, noting how the latter wishes she could put herself in it.  Sal responds by saying it is possible to make such things happen, and that you have to really want it.  That is a great way of approaching Faith, by the way, especially your relationship with God.  To prove that Sal’s suggestion is ludicrous, Meg attempts to smash the glass on the floor, only to have it bounce up and render her unconscious.  When she comes to, she is on the street being looked after by Ted (Donald Faison) and Doc Wilson (Steve Tom).  The former of these claims to be her husband, complete with a daughter, Mia (Damoni Burkhardt) and son, Teddy Jr. (Hayden Faraday).  They are just as confused as Meg, who at first believes she is in one of her movies.  They are worried that she cannot remember any of them, and blame the bump on the head she received during their snowball fight as the reason for her odd behavior.  Meg goes along with it, believing that she will go to bed, wake up the next morning, and everything will be back to normal.  When that does not occur, she thinks that she needs to fix her situation, which also comes with the realization that she has somehow gotten herself into her snow globe when Sal begins appearing to Meg in what the latter comes to tell herself is a hallucination.  Meg’s first step is to tell Mr. Barns (Art LaFleur), one of the many people from her real life to be in the fantasy one, to sell the woods he owns in the middle of the perfect town.  He refuses, but it becomes more complicated when she sees Eric, who is mayor of the town in this scenario.  She basically comes on to him, informing him about this great financial opportunity that can be had by convincing Mr. Barns to part ways with his land.  Eric is intrigued by her and her idea, suggesting later that they meet, business-wise and romantically, despite him being married.  The final pursuit of Meg is the aforementioned Christmas pageant.  Because she is a director by trade, and seeing in the kid’s play some sort of cosmic purpose to be completed through which she can snap herself back to reality, she applies the same strict theatrical rules to the children as she would seasoned actors.  This, along with Eric following through on Meg’s scheme, causes a great deal of strife amongst the denizens.  As things become strained, Ted tries to remain patient with a woman he sees as his wife, but insists that she is not that person.  It takes witnessing the pain she is causing with him and the town that begins to make her see that she has something good in this dreamscape.  Yet, things become more imperiled when Eric sits down with her while they are at a party and attempts to kiss Meg, with Ted catching the aborted smooch through the window.  To make matters worse, Eric next posts an eviction notice on Ted’s door, claiming that Meg had put the mayor up to it.  Meg finds Sal and is about to leave her imaginary life when she realizes that she can fix things.  It takes her to Eric’s door, convincing him to not go through with his plans of developing the forest if they can raise matching funds.  Her scheme for doing so is the upcoming pageant, banking on the citizens’ love for the woods to inspire them to civic duty.  Despite their best efforts, they come up short until Mr. Barns steps in with a large check to put them past their goal.  Sal is clearly satisfied by Meg’s transformation and arranges for her to be bumped once more on the head.  When she reawakens, she is back in the studio.  After giving the crew the rest of Christmas off, along with gifts, she takes her broken snow globe into town and finds the same house about which she had fantasized.  Inside is Ted, who she marries and they live happily ever after.

Of course, A Snow Globe Christmas has a happily ever after because this is a seasonal flick.  Throughout, there is, at least, a satisfying thread of a theme about perfection.  It is a tricky concept in Catholicism, and one on which I had been praying earlier today.  It is a bit like a balancing act.  Trying too hard to be perfect can lead one to be like Meg before she has her break from reality.  Faith seemingly puts a lot of pressure to always do right and avoid sin, even though doing so is, by definition, impossible in this fallen world.  For her, it was about meeting Frank’s demands, and those of others around her, and believing she could do it all on her own.  Like having a relationship with God, what her fantasy shows her is that there is another way, but you have to really want it.  God wants you, but in order for you to experience His love and mercy, you have to want Him back.  He also overlooks any number of imperfections because of that love, but He also wants us to communicate them to Him, which also helps us by acknowledging them.  The other side of the scale has the love and mercy Jesus has for each of us.  What you do not want to do, however, is take what God offers us for granted.  In other words, one should not give in to our natural inclination towards sin with the notion that is okay.  For us Catholics, we have the ultimate saving grace of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Thus, sin is not okay just because Confession exists.  When we are mired in these moments, sometimes it takes stepping outside of our so-called “comfort zone” in order for us to confront how poorly we have been behaving.  This is what happens with Meg.  The Church teaches that sin is a communal affair, that what we do as individuals affects the entire body of Christ.  Meg comes face-to-face with this truth by witnessing the impact of her actions on the town.  Luckily, we have God and thus do not need to knock ourselves out with a snow globe to know these things.

It is good to have such reminders, even in a slapped together movie like A Snow Globe Christmas.  It may sound somewhat unique based on the set-up I gave you in the introduction, but it is not all that original.  As such, if you have seen this one, you have seen many others.